This is why great movies shouldn’t have sequels. Make no mistake, Iron Man was a great movie. It took a character from the depths of obscurity and made him a national symbol. Sure it was a comic book movie, but it had more heart and more flare than a lot of more serious films. The story of a man totally absorbed in himself and his own pleasure being changed and using his power to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves was truly inspiring, led by a truly gifted actor. The action, while limited in quantity, was excellent in quality.

How do you follow an act like that? Well, at the command of the almighty dollar, Marvel Studios had to try. To be fair, what they came up with is watchable, in fact clearly a better sequal than their colossal disappointments of Spiderman 2 and X2: X-Men United, but it has none of the power of Iron Man.

The scene in Iron Man where Stark rescues the villagers from the Ten Rings is a scene I’ll probably never forget. It took two thirds of the movie to get to Stark’s first heroics as Iron Man, but it was well worth it.

If you’re thinking that, now that we have the origin story out of the way, we’ll get some extra action and heroics, think again. Marvel has to cram in more subplots and implausible characters to eat up time. Well, that’s not so bad, you say, more plot development is good, right?

Not when the writers are used to writing for comic books. Comic books have room for stories that go in circles, whereas movies simply don’t. For example, in part 2, Stark finds out that he’s dying due to the effects of the reactor core he built in part 1. Precious time for action sequences disappears forever while he remodels his workshop to build a machine and creates some “new element” that was supposedly impossible to create through a process the movie never even tries to explain. This new element magically cures his ailment and everything goes back to normal, so it doesn’t even drive the story. If I were to read through a decade’s worth of monthly comic book issues, I would expect some filler crap like this, but for a movie, it’s just wrong.

Similarly, after Stark seemed to have gotten a new set of priorities in part 1, in part 2, we get more of him staggering drunkenly, driving sports cars, and trying to score. When someone turns over a new leaf, is it unreasonable to expect them to never relapse? Probably. But that’s not the point. Why are we paying to watch the same stuff over?

Unlike comic serials, which are expected to keep a story going perpetually, a movie can, and should, present a coherent story that stands on its own and doesn’t waste time with filler. Judging by the buzz among nerds over the past few years, and by the easter eggs in both Iron Man movies, Marvell plans on changing this. Iron Man 2 is actually set-up for movies about Thor and the Avengers (who include Iron Man). In other words, Marvell plans on making movies more like comic books, written not so much to entertain as to advertise the next movie and keep you coming back for more. This might score with the hardcore comic nerds, but I doubt the general public will tolerate it for long.

I should probably say that Iron Man 2 is not horrible, and is even kind of entertaining if you turn your brain off. I’m sure there will be a third one, and I’ll probably see it. After all, both Spiderman and X-Men made improvements with their third installments. Once Iron Man 2 is out on video, it won’t be a bad way for you to kill two hours.

Bruce Willis has spent a lot of his career kicking in doors, but I bet this is the first time he’s had to do it just to get his wife out of bed. Surrogates is a disturbing story of man kind’s dependence on technology and susceptibility to control by fear. In the not-too-distant future, mid-Sunday A.D., 98% of all humans live vicariously through life-like robots. They lie in chairs that look like the offspring of a La-Z-Boy and a virtual reality entertainment center (“stem chairs”), and rarely leave their homes. Their work, and all other interaction, is done by their “surrogates,” androids connected to their brain stems.

You may, of course, choose your own “surry.” You can be whatever gender, race, body type, or hair color strikes your fancy. It’s sort of a universal Stepford Wives. You see what your surry sees, and feel what it feels (except the pain, of course).

In the future, all murder scenes will look like this.

Needless to say, the casting crew had their work cut out for them on this one, even by Hollywood standards, searching for enough perfect-faced, perfect-bodied people to fill out the future streets full of sculpted robots. These, of course, are to be contrasted with the recluses controlling them from home, who have really let themselves go. Willis plays Tom Greer (and his surrogate), an FBI agent whose wife refuses to even set foot outside her bedroom “in the flesh.”

Greer plugs into a stem chair.

Greer has bigger problems, however, because early in the movie, what starts as a routine vandalism investigation (below), soon appears to be a double homicide – the first two homicides in the western world in several years. It seems that someone has developed a weapon capable of sending a signal through a surry that not only destroys the surry, but liquefies the brain of the user.

Robocop meets CSI. Got enough crackers for all that cheese?

The initial theory is that this is subversive action by “Dreddies,” members of a colony where surrogates are outlawed. The Dreddies follow the leadership of “The Prophet” (Ving Rhames, below), claim sovereignty over a small patch of ground, and spurn all advanced technology, using horses and buggies, and the like.

Ving Rhames, trying way too hard.

In chasing his man, Greer narrowly survives, and has his surry destroyed. The FBI takes him off the case and refuses to issue him a new one. Now, for the first time in years, he must leave his home and track the killer (you didn’t really think he’d obey his captain and stay off the case?) with only his own weak flesh at his command. His investigation takes him first to the Dreddie colony. But is The Prophet what he seems? (I’ll give you a hint: I brought it up.)

Would you tell this it wasn't your wife? Some guys are just never happy.

Willis could have earned a lot of kudos for this film if he’d allowed the makeup department to make his human self ugly. It appears however, that his agent fought not to lower his image one bit. Everyone else is hideous, giving a realistic portrayal of people who haven’t shaved, showered or brushed their teeth for several days. Willis’ acting is passable. His most memorable scene is probably one where he begs his wife, through the eyes of her surry, (Rosamund Pike) to let him see her again (above). The best acting in the movie is probably done by Rhada Mitchell, as the blond, buxom surry of Greer’s homely (work) partner, Peters. I say this because this surry is taken over by several different people in the course of the movie, so she’s always switching characters. She also gets a scene where she runs at incredible speed through the street, doing flips over cars, and so forth. Which raises a question that the movie never resolves: if the streets are now populated with super-strong, super-fast robots, why are there still so many cars?

It’s hard to say more without spoiling a decent flick. I’ll just say if you like sci-fi, or crime stories, Surrogates is worth a look. Not a classic, but exciting, involving and thought-provoking.

As my uncle and I were walking out of the theatre after seeing T4, I turned to him and said “That was a good movie. Not necessarily a good Terminator movie, but still pretty good.” A guy walking past heard this brief exchange, and he turned to me and asked what movie we were discussing. “The new Terminator,” I told him. He paused, thought for a minute, and replied “Yeah, I think I’ll just rent it when it comes out on video.”

My anticipation level for T4 in the months leading up to its release was nearly palpable. I had watched the trailers many times, read all the pre-release interviews, checked out any pics and clips I could get my hands on, and re-watched the original three. But when Terminator Salvation finally came out, and was met with mixed reviews, I didn’t quite get it. I know trailers are rarely representative of the final product, but after everything I had seen and read I didn’t see how McG could screw this up. I mean, sure, he had directed Charlies Angels: Full Throttle, but given the richness of the Terminator universe, and the amount of talent at his disposal, surely he would not disappoint here. Unfortunately, I did not get to see T4 for a while, but in the meantime my wife and I did get the opportunity to watch We Are Marshall, a competently directed by-the-numbers inspirational sports movie, and my hopes for T4 remained high despite the somewhat negative criticism that was being leveled against it.

To be clear, this is not a movie about terminators–not in the classic sense that we all know them by now. The first three films have followed an entertaining but predictable premise: A gets sent back in time to kill B. C gets sent back in time to protect B. C is not as powerful as A. Cue battles, explosions, and ruminations on the human condition. Terminator Salvation has no time travel, and the entire movie takes place in the future after the infamous, but always impending, Judgement Day of the first three. It’s more like Mad Max than Terminator, and herein lies the crux of the matter: as long as you aren’t expecting another retread of James Cameron’s original premise, this is a very enjoyable action movie.

The many explosive action set pieces lend an epic sense to T4 that was sorely missing in T3, and the deserted wastelands of the western coast really give a sense that this is a world without hope, consisting of scattered bands of humans struggling to survive. In fact, we see that humanity is not entirely united in its fight against the machines, and some groups are content to stay underground and exist in fear. I rather enjoyed this larger take on our futuristic counterparts, as it shows some depth to the Terminator universe that I had previously not considered. Much of the movie is about Marcus Wright, rather than the famous John Connor, and this is where things in the script department start to get a little derailed.

For years we have been hearing about the great leader John Connor. Even before he was onscreen we heard about him in the original Terminator. In T2 he was a petulant upstart with a whole lot of potential for channeling his angst into world-saving charisma. T3 showed a JC who was more like the whiny Anakin Skywalker of Episode II, but ended with the seeds of humanity’s savior finally beginning to take root. In T4, our fabled hero is nowhere to be found for much of the movie. Instead we are treated to another petulant upstart, a survivalist woman who thinks she is in a Resident Evil movie, and a young girl who cannot talk (can anyone say Newt?). Connor does get to bust some robotic heads near the end, but this movie takes so many departures on its way to the climax (which, in essence, leaves everyone no better off than they were at the beginning, and very little has actually changed or happened) that it’s somewhat of a letdown. Sam Worthington’s performance as Marcus Wright is outstanding, and I wholeheartedly welcome him into the Terminator timeline. Kudos also to Chckov Anton Yelchin who does a pretty darn good job as Kyle Reese.

Still, it has to be said that Terminator Salvation is exhilarating, entertaining, and a whole lot of fun to watch. Just know that it’s not quite the T4 we were all expecting.

On a side note, any time a post-apocalyptic movie has a cast with gleaming white teeth and lip gloss, the immersive quality is immediately reduced to near-zero (see also: Matrix 2 and 3).

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